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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIFE AND HEALING. 



A 



SEGMENT OF SPIRITONOMY. 



BY 
HOLMES W. MERTON. 




'i?*7 



publtsfyeb by % author, 

212 Columbus Avenue, 

Boston, Mass. 






WRITTEN APRIL 5TH, 1893. 
COPYRIGHT 1894, 

BY 

HOLMES W. MERTON. 




HOLMES W. MERTON. 



THE ARGUHENT OF DENIAL. 

The material body can neither create nor 
maintain life; can neither heal discords (dis- 
ease) nor establish harmony; cannot feel, rea- 
son, or will; is not sentient, sensuous, or inde- 
pendent. 

THE ARGUflENT OF POSSESSION. 

Those truths that relate to life are found in 
solving spirit laws through their expressions 
in organized bodies, by which expressions it 
becomes possible to understand the pheno- 
mena of life and to gain tho.se elements of 
knowledge concerning the nature of things 
that will lead our reason, faith, and judgment 
to the more perfect use and control of the spirit 
forces of the Omni verse. We attempt to find 
that concord of nature which the material 
world does not possess ; to proclaim that the 
mental living constitution of man is a spirit 
organism, composed of spirit substances and 
governed by spirit forces ; that all life de- 
pends upon such government as shall be in 
harmony with those spirit laws of the Omni- 
verse which create life conditions and life 
action. We argue that disease in all its varied 
forms is but the loss of spiritual self-rulership, 
discordant in its habits, but easily mastered by 
mental self-government, by confidence in self- 
rightness, and by the absence of fear, hatred, 
extreme passions or depressing emotions. 



LIFE AND HEALING. 



province. It is our province in this little 
book, to state what seems to us to be the un- 
derlying substances, forces and forms that are 
essential to life. We shall not attempt a 
negative attack upon the vast number of 
variable explanations of the solution. But 
leaving those systems to defend themselves 
against the presence and evidences of more 
positive thought, we shall proceed with what 
we believe to be the nearer solution to the 
habits of living things. 

We have included the doctrine of healing 
with our argument of life laws, because all 
healing is the gaining of life ; all life is spirit 
growth and progress. That which contributes 
life and harmonizes life elements, heals or 
makes whole. 



object of inquiry. I^ife is a condition of 
elements. What those elements are, what 
kinds of power they have, and how to gather 
together those elements with their powers, are 
questions to which we seek answers. 

Such is the intuitive nature of man that in 
every great age there have lived persons with 
the same great intuitions of the nature of life. 

If we listen to the intuitive hermit or the in- 
tuitive philosopher of this age we shall hear 
the intuitive affirmations of ages past. These 
have changed but little, except in the terms 
of expression. 

We cannot rely upon our intuitions alone ; 
they are the indefinite precursors of the 
superior methods of measurements. 

We must elaborate and confirm our in- 
tuitions and inspirations concerning the rela- 
tions of one truth to another, by the more 
rigid processes of reason. 

If an object of inquiry extends beyond the 
range of our knowledge or beyond the limits of 
our capacity to inquire, we cannot possibly 
know more than those parts that are within 
the range of inquiry. It is thus with the 
Omniverse. No amount of imaginative exten- 
sion can carry our knowledge beyond our lim- 
its of inquiry. 

The materialists, weighing the evidences of 
their senses, attribute to matter all of the forces, 
watch the changes of life through long ages, 



9 

and finally, their senses apparently giving 
them nothing but material energies, substan- 
ces, and their sequences, these materialists 
remain in thought only material scientists in a 
material Omniverse. 

And thus they confide even yet almost 
utterly in the power of material elements to 
originate life ; and that, in the long course of 
time given them, these elements have brought 
about more and more perfect beings. Some 
have noticed that "these elements in some un- 
explainable way," seem to change their 
nature in so doing. 

But this has been noted only in a dim and 
indefinite way, and more from dissatisfaction 
at the result obtained than from the evidences 
of apparent law. How chemical elements 
can create life, none seem able to give even 
a reasonable hypothesis ; yet, once having 
life, a long line of living objects constantly 
becoming more and more complex individually, 
and as a race, they claim as the result of 
chemical nature. 

evolution. They do not seem to realize 
that the same laws that made the higher orders 
possible, made likewise the lower orders of life 
possible, inasmuch, that the higher laws made 
the lower orders necessary. So far as evolu- 
tion is concerned, it is not in any way a law of 
matter, — evolution is, in fact, an effect of the 
involution and habit of spirit substances. 



There could be nothing at all strange in sim- 
ilar parts or functions existing in great numbers 
of living things at nearly like stages of their 
development ; their parts are the products of 
like laws in each. 

alternative. Or, our philosopher and 
scientist who is unable to believe the orderly 
course of myriads of events to be the product 
of unintelligent matter, repudiates matter as 
the cause, in favor of Mind, or of God, or of 
Principle. 

That either of these could be analyzable 
seems to him impossible ; that they could be 
composed of parts — equally irrational. Why 
should the mental nature of man reach a high 
state of inspiration concerning his own nature 
and the Deity, before physical science was 
made reasonably clear, unless his inspirations 
were true ? How could man know aught con- 
cerning the spiritual Omni verse, before he 
knew the contour and relations of even the 
solar system ? And if the laws of the visible 
Omniverse were discovered, how could that 
explain the phenomena of intelligence ? 

The progress of knowledge to those who are 
unfamiliar with the laws of mental action, 
seems to be quite contrary to natural law. 
Such questions as these, then, they find quite 
as far unanswerable by the laws of physics as 
they are beyond the firmest steps of philoso- 
phy. 



II 

Where science seemed to contradict ethics, 
philosophy, or religion, we see and have 
seen "the division of the waters;" two great 
systems of thought rushing on. The mass of 
facts of both are true. Of the mass of conclu- 
sions drawn, we reserve opinion now. Of the 
two great systems, the essential of one is the 
evolution of matter in life; the essential of the 
other is the constantly sustained incessant cre- 
ations of an omnipotent being. 

infinite. We have spoken of the first; 
let us dwell a moment on the second. Ac- 
cording to the latter system this omnipresent 
power must rule all things, and therefore, in 
order to govern, He must be omnipotent, and 
finally, in order that the Omniverse should be 
freed from sin, He must be omniscient. 
Carrying their deductions along this narrow 
path, the existence of a "material universe;" 
and an Infinite Being, in Infinite Space, 
seemed no barrier to their reasoning ; over 
these impassable obstructions no progress 
could be made in solving the nature of life. 

The Omniverse was bereft of limits because 
"finite" man could not measure its' last limit. 
The limited could not comprehend the unlimit- 
ed, the finite could not comprehend the Infin- 
ite and must therefore in this life on earth, re- 
main ignorant of all except that somewhere, 
somehow, the Infinite existed. 



12 

These premises and their conclusions are 
the body of their philosophies, and because 
mortals cannot rationalize these with the vari- 
able course of events under supposed invaria- 
ble laws, and in the contradictions of habits 
and accidents, they constitute the One Great 
Mystery. 

effect. Cause and effect when concerning 
an object, are ever the same, so far as the 
thing in which they transpire is concerned ; 
cause is an historical statement of an effect, 
and otherwise never exists. 

methods. We shall seek to find upon what 
great general laws the orderly procession of 
things moves, each particle and part, and 
whole seeking to fulfil its own motive in the 
eternal Now. 

Wherever we turn we shall find the inter- 
pretation of action toward Harmonic Habit, 
harmonic law ; will find that concord within 
each part to the perfection of that part will 
bring unity of parts, and that unity of parts 
brings perfection of wholes. 

The spirituality of the investigator will aid, 
it is true, in getting an insight into the pre- 
liminary outline of the subjects at hand. But 
we shall appeal to nature and nature's evi- 
dences, and shall not hide behind the screen 
that so often pretends to hide great truths by 
claiming that it requires " great spirituality " 
or a " mystical nature " to understand. Few 



13 

persons indeed have learned to interpret their 
impressions of spirit law ; and intuition or 
spirituality alone are not sufficient for the end 
in view. Natural laws compared, reasoned 
upon, and the combination of great synthetic 
and analytical power were necessary to the 
first understanding, but thereafter the truth, 
as rapidly as it is discovered, should be clear 
to any interested and logical mind. 

natural law. The evidences we shall 

point out as we proceed, in order to substan- 
tiate our successive claims, must of ne- 
cessity be only a small number as compared 
with the perpetually recurring mass of evi- 
dence open to the student, when once the 
relation of the form and quantity of an object 
to its forces have become reasonably clear. 

As we have seen, there seems to have been 
insurmountable obstacles in the way of the 
materialist and physical scientist to find 
physical ' ' cause ' ' for an effect apparently 
opposite the nature of physical effects. 

They were forced to credit the evidences 
given their senses from one direction, and to 
doubt an equally strong series from another ; 
to squabble over "cause and effect' ' as though 
they were separate in action and in place ; 
were forced, according to their own philoso- 
phy, to accumulate a knowledge of all the vis- 
ible habits of things, and then try to find in the 
inferior (or less complex) the "cause" of 
the habit of the superior (or more complex.) 



H 

But the physicists and materialists went 
even farther than this in their worship of mat- 
ter as chemical elements ; they trusted the 
microscope, telescope, and chemical retort, 
but doubted the reason that constructed those 
implements. 

Some writers deny the existence of ' ' mat- 
ter " or chemical elements, and include all 
things as mind. It is of little consequence 
what we call the diamond, the flake of steel, 
or the malleable fragment of gold. They are 
crystaline — life opposing substances. We may 
as well recognize that fact first as last. 

The discovery of gravitation, and the 
apparent incapacity of man to produce an 
absolute vacuum, lent remarkable staying 
power to the system of physics, yet we may 
find that the forces of gravity are insufficient 
to planitary revolutions, and that force is im- 
possible without vacuum. We shall not dwell 
upon these two great elements of physics and 
power. We cannot afford to doubt the truths 
that seem evident, nor yet to assume to know 
what knowledge the future holds in store for 
us ; neither need we apologize for our convic- 
tions by stating a half dozen alternatives to 
each element of opinion we announce. There- 
fore, while realizing that we may be wrong, 
we shall proceed with our statement. 

chemical laws. We find that chemical 
elements in living bodies, act very contrary to 



15 

their habits in lifeless bodies ; we find that 
matter (the chemical elements) must decay or 
change from its rigid individual forms before 
it can become a vital part of a living structure, 
and, when within the living structure, must 
continually disobey, in a very large degree, its 
own laws. 

We take a step further, and we find that 
about only one-fifth of the known chemical 
elements are easily involved in living objects, 
and the rest are nearly all rejected. 

We also find the scientists claiming that there 
are six great forces, or modes of motion, and 
that living objects are so constituted that 
these, with the chemical elements, cause the 
condition we call life. 

The discovery of the process called evolu- 
tion adds another great law to their structure, 
and has, as we have already stated, become one 
of the great doctrines of this age. 

synaktesis. We shall try to disprove the 
doctrine of material evolution. Evolution is 
not a law of matter, or material force ; evolu- 
tion, in its process, is a law of spirit substances 
and their forces. Evolution is the successive 
effects of the involving of spirit substances and 
the attendant forced action of matter. 

By this synartesis physical life is possible 
while the spirit substances rule. The synarchy 
of spirit and matter form life. 



i6 

We shall find that the physical forces, such 
as light, heat, chemia, gravity, electricity and 
magnetism, are, after all, only of essential use 
to material processes, and are not able to effect 
or continue life. 

These six great modes of motion — light, 
heat, gravity, chemia, electricity, and mag- 
netism — may stop the material accompaniment 
to life, either by their absence or their exces- 
sivepresence — at least, heat, electricity, grav- 
ity and chemic force may do so. But these 
facts are not evidence that they create life pro- 
cesses. 

crystaline. The crystal is the unit of the 
material Omniverse. Every chemical element, 
so far as known, when reduced to its lowest 
consistency, forms a crystaline body. It is 
then bounded by straight lines, and governed 
by right-line poles. Its motions are acute or 
oblique angles, its internode (path of vibration) 
assumes the direction of its poles, and, in the 
absence of one or more of the great material 
forces, it tends either to disintegrate like from 
like, or, to assume rigidity. If this were not 
true, the problem of life would yet. be un- 
solved. Before we proceed further, let us con- 
sider in condensed form, the opposite doctrine, 
that of Deism in general. 

We have become accustomed to generalities 
in metaphysics and theistic arguments ; we 
often fail to notice the distinction between a 



17 

part and a whole — fail in our thought and 
speech to separate our ideas of a thing from 
those of its habits. Thus we find .he mistake 
most often made by intuitive as well as other 
thinkers is that of confounding the thing — 
the body or substance of an object — with its 
condition. 

Many of the mistakes of intuitive thinkers, 
and of those who are filled with intense faith, 
come from the desire to condense statements 
of truth into epigrammatic form, and to modify 
the common meaning of a word or sentence by 
extreme emphasis. Let us take as an instance 
a statement fraught with much comparative 
truth: "All is good;" intensified into " All is 
Good;" then into "All is Good, or God." The 
word "good" as first used is an adjective, and 
relates to a condition of things ; the second 
"Good" is made a noun and relates to the kind 
of benefits or advantages that things ma)* or 
do give; the third "Good, or God," is made 
to represent, not the condition of things or the 
powers involved, but a thing itself. All this 
is confusing, the shortened sentence requires 
more explanation (if it were true at all) than 
would be required to state the true meaning. 

We shall soon see how necessary it is that, 
in our thinking, we do not confuse the idea of 
the substance or body of a thing with that of 
its habit. 



i8 

attributes. A thing, or object, cannot 
transfer itself or be tranferred to another thing, 
except by accretion thereto; it must add its 
body and form to that of the thing it joins. 

Let us not forget this : Every thing in the 
Omniverse has its own form, occupies its own 
space, has its own individuality. These attri- 
butes are not all that things possess, which 
necessitates that we consider the habit, or 
method of acting, in fact, the motions of things; 
the power of one or more things to modify or 
change the motion of another thing. For the 
sake of brevity we will call this habit. We 
cannot deny that things vary greatly in their 
habits and conditions, and must necessarily be 
relative in their goodness, and yet all may do 
good. 

aix is good, Now we return to the epi- 
gram quoted above. "All is good" may then 
read, "All is relatively good;" but if God is 
a being, or an object, or a substance, the 
meaning conveyed by the statement "All is 
Good, or God," cannot be made to read "All 
things do, relatively, Good, or God," for the 
intent must be that good is a condition pos- 
sessed or given, and God is a thing. Either 
both terms must mean the same object, without 
reference to quality, or both relate to condi- 
tion alone. 

habit. We cannot think logically or 

clearly if we confound the habit of a thing 



19 

with the thing itself. The reasons why Ave can- 
not are plainly these: A thing by its own habit 
may overcome the habit of a weaker thing, or 
may change the habit of a conscious thing be- 
cause of a desire to change in the conscious 
thing. Habit may be either transferred or 
emulated. Habit is the mode of an object, 
not its substance ; substances may join each 
other's movements, ma}' succumb to each 
other's motions, but they can neither destroy 
each other or their own laws. 

force. Thus we may approach nearer 

the clear conception of the forces, for force is 
the individual habit of a thing either acting 
alone or in the presence of other things. The 
habits of some things — that is, pai tides, sub- 
stances, or bodies — harmonize with the habits 
of other things, their movements synchronize ; 
this we note as mutuality of time. The habits 
of some things antagonize the habits of other 
things. Their movements may be either asyn- 
chronous, (out of time) or may be different in 
length of movement or in direction. When 
this happens and the substances or bodies 
repel each other, we note it as antagonism. 

mutuality. Spirit subtances have all 
these habits. Matter also has them. But the 
curved directions of spirit movements have 
much greater mutuality of movement than 
have the angular directions of matter. In the 



20 

living body, the movements of spirit are in 
such direction and proportion as to make their 
harmony almost perpetual. 

In the higher living bodies, the desire and 
expectancy of harmony of conscious spirit is 
of itself both synchronic and sympathetic with 
the habit of spirit substances around. The 
ability to receive originates in the receiver; the 
effect is involution of spirit substances and the 
incursion of spirit habit (forces) from contact 
with surrounding substances. 

We are conscious that we supply our phy- 
sical body with elements which we derive 
from many different sources. There is no diffi- 
culty in understanding that these different 
particles aggregate into one body of many 
parts. Why should it be difficult to under- 
stand that the spirit body, in a similar way, 
gathers together the particles that compose its 
aggregate body of many parts ? Certainly it 
does this through different laws, different 
forces, and different paths of action, than 
those of matter. 

We know not how great may be the inter- 
stices of material substances; we can only 
measure material energy by material ener- 
gy, and, as we overcome it, by spirit energy. 

The physical body is warmed from without, 
as well as from within ; is nullified from with- 
out and built from the material elements that 



21 

exist around it. Why not the spirit body ? 
It is vitalized, harmonized, fed, strengthened, 
and made intelligent, affectionate and voli- 
tional from the masses of spirit substances 
that move in their curved harmony, the suns 
and planets of the Omni verse. 

There is no lethargy in the vast concourse 
of bodies. Every single object, from the small- 
est atomic particle of substance to the greatest 
body of substances, has its powers, each de- 
pending upon surrounding substances for a 
full manifestation. 

Thus we know that each particle or combin- 
ation of particles has it own way of acting — 
its favorite habit — its method of movement — 
its inherent energy — it principle of effect — that 
is, its own natural law. 

This is true of spirit, true of matter, The 
questions needing solution are those which 
determine the forms and laws of such sub- 
stances as are able to produce life. If chemical 
elements and their natural habits can effect the 
condition called life, then material involution 
and the processes of physical change are 
enough to account for the living as well as the 
inorganic objects that are found within the 
range of human knowledge. But every parti- 
cle obeys it own natural law, unless governed 
by more powertul particles ; it obe} T s its own 
natural law in preference to any other, simply 
because that is its habit and its polarity. 



22 

It is impossible to conceive of an Omniverse 
composed of one kind of substance, with one 
kind of polarity, and necessarily one habit of 
motion, yet producing objects with uncounta- 
ble kinds of forms and phenomena. All evi- 
dence thus far discovered by the human in- 
tellect, affections or will, affirms the unchange- 
ability of each element and the accomplish- 
ment of variable effect through the variable 
ratios of differing substances — substances with 
different forms, polarities, and consequent 
different motions and laws. 

to create. The condition created is in sym- 
pathy with its creator. One substance acting 
with another substance to effect a third condi- 
tion of their bodies — to transform or reform — 
is to create. Hence, the body created is in 
sympathy with itself, and like habits produce 
and support like habits. It matters little 
whether the action is between two or more of 
the smallest, or of the largest, parts of the 
Omniverse. Thus harmony develops harmoii3 T , 
and antagonism develops antagonism. 

truth. A law is a method of action. All 
action is true ; it may be disagreement. Truth 
relates to actions or past actions, and false- 
hood is a misstatement of action, a condition of 
doubt; and doubt leads to disease, to loss of 
government. Hence, law and truth are in 
objects — things — parts — and cannot be taken 
from them. 



23 

We know the laws of an object only as far as 
we know the thing in which the truth is. We 
must try not to be mistaken in regard to these 
parts of knowledge. 

We cannot solve all the laws of life by a 
study of its cell structure. We find there an 
essential method and motion, but we shall 
only find the complete expression of cell power 
when we study their masses and their habits 
in the higher forms of life. Of these the human 
brain and its receiving organs are undoubtedly 
the arch-type of form and power; and, as it 
is through a knowledge of the human brain as 
a spirit organism that we can solve those ele- 
ments of natural life and of human develop- 
ment, that can be discovered in no other way, 
we proceed with a tentative statement of some 
of its functions. 

The writer here credits Dr. Sivartha with 
the great discoveries upon which this book is 
founded, but, so far as he knows, he (the 
writer) is solely responsible for many of the 
conclusions here set forth. 

human brain. The human brain and its 
organs of sense translate, transform and ad- 
just the material forces into movements that 
harmonize with the spirit structure of the 
brain and body. These movements of material 
substances thus become as near the direction 
and internode of spirit movements as it is yet 
possible for the motions of material elements 



24 

and their compounds to become. The brain is 
thus, in its habits and products, essentially a 
spirit organism, and not a material one. 
Clairvoyance, audivoyance, thought tranfer- 
rence and similar mental effects are partially 
transformed and spiritually transferred forces 
before they are felt by the organs of sense. 
The compound organs of sense must mod- 
ify the incoming material forces before the 
brain can recognize them as pleasurable forces. 
If it cannot sufficiently modify and govern 
them they become destructive. It is thus 
with all poisons — they are ungoverned — and all 
elements, when ungoverned, are destructive to 
life. The movements caused by light and 
sound, never, as such, enter the living brain. 
Odors, flavors and motions of touch are trans- 
formed before they reach the brain, although 
the substances which effect these forces may 
afterward enter into the blood and become a 
part of the brain structure. But these forces 
as received by the senses, must be changed 
into motions such as the brain can, as a spirit 
organ, understand. Neither physiologist nor 
physicist has yet realized how the brain, 
as a physical organ, or the "mind," can 
take cognizance of force or sense, or receive 
' impressions and commands " from each other" 
back and forth. ' ' The point of contact cannot 
be known," is their oft-repeated statement, 
and no wonder. The "mind" they have never 



25 

yet located. Some thinkers have dematerial'ized 
it into nothing, and failed to reconstruct it 
with anything else. Whether the ' ' mind' ' is a 
condition or a thing no one seems yet to 
have determined. To say it is "the soul," 
or "a soul," or that its action is "psychical 
phenomena," only leads further away into 
greater quicksands of reason. There is, it 
seems to this writer, no other solution, than 
that forces are the habits of bodies, and these 
habits can be changed by combination and 
conservation of their energies. "Mind" thus 
expresses the habits and nature of a spirit 
mental mechanism. 

momentum. Another bold step must be 
taken before the "forces" can be accounted 
for, and that step is in opposition to the doc- 
trine that "nature abhors a vacuum." The 
theory of an elastic ether, filling space and the 
interstices of matter, is without sufficient sup- 
port to be accredited. 

Nature abhors a vacuum only when the re- 
sistence is great enough or the polarities 
strong enough to thrust or draw particles to- 
gether. Vacuum exists between particles 
wherever force is manifested, and as great in 
proportion as the liberated node of momentum 
will admit. 

The mode of motion of a substance is its 
internode of momentum. Over this very short 
path it travels to and fro with great rapidity. 



26 

This path is along the direction of its poles. 
This atomic power, by joining other particles, 
may create another motion which includes the 
internode of atomic momentum. The first 
explains the forces, the second — dynamic en- 
ergy and movement. 

the senses. We can now return to a con- 
sideration of the organs of sense. It is very 
essential that we understand them if possible. 
We shall then better understand how to feed 
our spirit nature, for spirit is substance — not 
an hallucination, not a force. 

The different vibrations of light, giving the 
effect called colors, are transformed by the eye 
into vibrations of nerve-substances. These 
transformed vibrations have a spirit-force 
habit, because the nerves themselves are gov- 
erned by spirit. When these particular curves 
and forms of force are carried to the brain by 
the optic nerve they are there recognized as 
light, each color depending upon its particu- 
lar length and shape of movement to give it 
its individuality. The same is true of heat, 
sound, odors, flavors, touch and the milder 
forms of electric force. Each organ has its 
own process and habit of effecting the change 
it is adapted to make. 

Thus by these compound spirit-and-matter 
organs of the nervous system, there is a con- 
servation of material energy into spirit en- 
ergy, and the reverse. 



27 

To the extent that each organ is limited in 
its spirit power it is limited in its reception of 
material or spirit force. Let us not imagine 
that material forces only are received. 

Some of these forces — as heat, electricity, 
and gravity — may become so powerful that 
they destroy the receiver, and thus make 
their conservation impossible by the living 
organ of sense. The transforming of material 
forces into spirit forces by the organs of the 
senses clearly demonstrates that none of the 
physical forces are life forces. Why not ? In 
order to answer we must briefly consider two 
other qualities of force, namely, polarity and 
atomic momentum. 

These qualities are distinguished by the 
difference of direction, length of internode 
(path) and rapidity with which the body 
moves from one end to the other of its path. 

A variation of these three distinct qualities 
of the motion of a body, whether great or small, 
makes possible very many different degrees of 
power and effect. 

These qualities also distinguish the motions 
of material bodies from those of spirit bodies, 
and indicate the presence of one governing 
the other. The motions of material sub- 
stances have longer internodes, along acute 
or oblique angles, according to their single or 
combined polarities. If we study chemical 
elements, we can see, in their crystal forms, 



28 

the contour of their movements. These re- 
quire to be reduced in length and width of 
internode — to be rounded and made smoother 
— in obeying nervous and spirit influences. 

forms. The form of a body is the product 
of its substances — of the combined elements 
of which it is composed. By comparing the 
forms of living things with the crystal-line 
forms of the. inorganic world we shall notice 
remarkably different energies. 

A living thing is governed by smooth, 
curved, self-retaining forces. A dead and inor- 
ganic thing is governed by angular, straight 
and disintegrating forces. Neither of the two 
great classes of substances can ever produce 
the other. An element cannot change its na- 
ture ; it can voluntarily gain only that 
which sympathizes with it, and, by accretion, 
through harmony of form and movement. 

Matter everywhere demonstrates its desire 
for supremacy, That supremacy is to crystal- 
ize, disintegrate, degenerate and compound 
with its fellows. Organisms having life op- 
pose these habits and move in curves and el- 
lipses; accumulate, organize and generate, 
and are self-repairing. 

extremes. Between these extremes lie 
all the known processes of omniversal law. 
We know of no habit of any substance that 
goes beyond these in either direction. The 
first series, that of matter, leads to extreme 



29 

rigidity; the second series, that of spirit, le'ads 
to the extreme of conscious mobility, feeling 
and thought. 

The first is the method of chemical activity 
and material law; the second, widely different 
in every essential habit, is the method of 
spiritual power and spirit law. This last is 
the nature of the grand series of substances 
which govern all the multiplicity of things 
having life. 

spirit. This class, called spirit, contains 
many elements, is curvilineal in form, mode 
of motion, and in polarity. 

Life thus becomes the product and effect 
of the involution, organization, and govern- 
ment of that class of substances. 

involuntary physical life. The material 
body, formed from the elements of bioplasm, 
is a compulsory accompaniment of matter to 
the self-governing spirit. We know the 
whole as a body having life. 

So long as this incidental and enforced gov- 
ernment of matter by organized spirit con- 
tinues the material body obeys the laws of 
life, but- the instant the spirit body loses con- 
trol of the material body, material disintegra- 
tion takes place, and material forces govern 
the material bod)-. It is then in a state of in- 
animation — we call it death ; it obeys crystal- 
line forces, can no longer repair abrasions, 



3^ 

ceases all organized habit and is yielded to 
the control of its atomic forces. 

Has any biologist shown that life, or 
thought, or feeling, or will were products or 
conditions of matter? Matter is, in life, a 
servant of these. 

Every living thing has as its unit of struc- 
ture, a circular, or nearly circular, cell. 
This cell is bounded by curved lines and its 
poles of force are curved in their directions. 
It is, materially, a globular film of fibers and 
protoplasm, containing within it fluid sub- 
stances which, in their simplest states, are 
usually called bioplasm. 

But the cell substances which govern its 
form and effect the different life motions are 
spirit. 

sfirofxasm. These substances by their 
own laws form a compound which we may 
call spiroplasm, that is, spirit elements in the 
right proportion to effect life. 

Among these elements there is one which 
has a polarity very much like that of oxygen 
(except that the element is smaller). We 
may call this element spirogen. It is a 
genetic spirit substance. Through its habits 
and by combination of its particles, and with 
the combined powers of others of its kind, 
the chemical elements may become attached 
to the living spirit and must then obey its 
laws until some gradual or powerful crystaliz- 



3i 

ing element destroys the relation of forced 
mutuality. 

We say forced mutuality — perhaps forced 
co-action (physical slavery) would better ex- 
press the state they are in. We find no 
harmonic action in the chemical elements, al- 
though evolutionists have supposed we could, 
in the sense that they are organized bodies. 
True, they aggregate in ratios and stay con- 
sistent as such until some other element is 
thrust near them, and then they fly apart 
without provision for the remnants. 

With spirit substances the nature is differ- 
ent. Their tendencies (at least those demon- 
strated in life) are centerward ; and replace- 
ment, readjustment, organization and perpet- 
uation are their natural laws and motions. 

harmonism. Iyife, then, is a series of har- 
monic actions carried on by spirit substances 
that have a tendency, through their circular 
motions, to return near the place of joining 
their fellows. This rushing around in curved 
streams, gathering more and more together, 
with rearrangement and continual sympathy, 
produces growth. 

We shall now pay less attention to the 
physiology, and more attention to the spirit- 
ononvy, of living tilings. We shall think less 
of the inorganic world and more of the organic 
world. 

The spirit organism alone has a knowledge 



32 

or sense of phenomena, a knowledge of part 
by part. It is, as it were, many conscious 
wheels of an intricate machine recognizing 
the existence of other wheels of the same 
mechanism, all moving each other toward a 
common effect. 

consciousness. No single element can 
ever be conscious of itself. Consciousness is 
the recognition, by a very complex structure, 
of the existence of another object. No body 
but an harmonic one can ever have conscious- 
ness. 

Simple living things are spirit governed, 
but they must become complex before they 
can know of their own existence. 

spiritone. A spiritone (living spirit 
body) is a body each part of which responds 
to, and has concerted movements with, each 
other part. When this demonstration is com- 
plete enough to organize the means for pleas- 
ure and the provision for existence, it becomes 
mentality. 

Mentality is a consummation that can only 
come through permanency of substance and 
constancy of motion — substantial memory. 
Mentality evidences the quantity, but not the 
quality, of intellect, affection or volition. 

Thus, reaching mentality, we come to a 
consideration of man : So far as our senses 
receive evidence, man is the most perfect 
spiritone that is incapable of rejecting the 



33 

involuntary chemical elements, and must, 
therefore, during combined life, make contin- 
uous provision for their presence in right pro- 
portion. 

As far as experience teaches us, human 
beings have not been able to develope without 
the accretion of material bodies. We do not 
affirm it to be impossible. The material body 
requires right substances and conditions — 
those of nutrition, temperature and rest. The 
natures of the two classes of substances are 
such that when the right proportion of mate- 
rial elements is not present the spiritone must 
suffer retarded and inharmonic movements. 
These we call pain. They produce the ac- 
tions that demand repair, and when repair is 
not effected may bring on dissolution of phy- 
sical ratios, crystalization and physical death. 

pain. The mastery of pain and physical 
death depends upon spirit conditions that will 
continue spirit harmony. In order to do that, 
the spiritone must make provision for, and 
govern a perfect physical structure. The 
centre of all this government is the brain. 

The complex structure of the human brain 
is the living maximum of cell-life. It can in 
no wa} T be accounted for by the material sub- 
stances and their laws that are known to man. 

It is the only known structure capable of 
solving its own methods — was itself its last 
solution. It looked outward to the Omni verse 



34 

around, gradually drew near to its own na- 
ture, and at last saw itself co-existant and re- 
sponsive to the orderly arrangement of life 
and law around it, began to think of its own 
perfection by growth, and to find in itself its 
greatest object of perpetual study. 

How much more perfect being than man 
there may be, we know not. An archetype 
of man could be only a more perfectly har- 
monic and law-obeying being than man — 
greater because more conscious of a greater 
nature ; greater in being more complex and 
more intense — not through arising above 
laws, but by containing more of them. 

In living things complexity gives conscious- 
ness — gives self-knowledge. As man grows 
more complex he realizes more of his own 
nature and power. With this knowledge of 
elements comes knowledge of self-government 
and self-perfection. These conduce to health 
— produce unity of action, not only unity of 
action of the mental organs, but between the 
mental and bodily organs — harmony between 
the governor and the governed. 

Harmony of mental action is essentially 
due to fully developed organs of thought, 
feeling and will, with the higher faculties of 
each ruling the lower ones. 

When those faculties that grow — and ra- 
diate forces — forward and upward are strong 
enough to mould the wants and supplies of 



35 

the whole, the nature takes an upward 
growth, and in very truth follows the path of 
spirit light. 

All progress is spiritual growth, gauged 
by the purity of our foods and by the noble- 
ness of our mental associates. By keeping 
these of a quality devoid of poison, hate, re- 
venge and falsehood, we are enabled to grow 
ennobled. Thus may we gain the elements 
that create in us an abundance of amity, 
hope, devotion and self-rulership. These 
will give us power to translate — through our 
organs of inspiration, reason and communion 
— nature's spirit laws into thought and con- 
duct. 

The material body is the servant of the 
spiritone, which governs by intense mixture 
with the physical elements. The physical 
body as a whole is as deathless as is the 
spiritone, if perfectly governed by it. The 
more perfect the confidence the spiritone has 
in its own power to govern, the more united 
its elements are in their action. Hopeful 
promises of usefulness make life longer. 

The more perfectly each part recognizes the 
needed function and activity of every other 
part, the greater the power of growth. 

Knowledge that will direct every part of 
the spiritone toward doing its duty to the 
whole— is the key to healing and health— 
and mental recognition of natural personal 



36 

strength is the greatest preventive and cure. 
The higher the degree of life, the greater 
the intensity, and this intensity can thus be 
made to produce either greater constancy 
or greater disintegration, just in proportion to 
the presence or lack of concord. 

chemical medicines. The reason that 
the "proximate principles" that chemically 
nutrify living things cannot be successfully 
compounded by any chemist, is due to the 
fact that spirit elements and their natural 
organic tendencies are not present. And this 
is why the chemical compounds of the "ma- 
teria medica" so seldom give the desired re- 
sults. They may furnish material substances 
having, perhaps, forces such as the body 
seems to require. In reality it is either spirit 
forces, or elements having those forces, that 
are needed to effect the healing. 

Physicians have doctored the body as the 
ruling elements of man. They have encour- 
aged pain and disease through ignorance of 
the nature of either. Pain is very largely 
habit — will-less habit. When one grieves, is 
it from loss of an organ ? Is it " physical ? ' ' 
Certainly not. What causes loss and pain 
through grief ? Lack of the spirit ruling 
itself. 

Equally so when bad action takes place in 
any part of the organism, call the action "dys- 



37 

pepsia," "rheumatism," "insanity," — what 
you will. It is perverted action of mentality, 
loss of rulership, unspiritual habit. 

Suppose we are thirsty and refuse to drink, 
would our thirst be quenched ? Suppose we 
neglect to feed our spirit organs ; as a conse- 
quence we " ache." If we refuse to get 
spirit from food and air, if we doubt the vast 
reservoir of spirit, will we get nourishment 
for our spirit ? 

The possibility of repelling is equal to that 
of attracting. We may deny the desiring, 
harmonizing, life-giving substances and life 
containing substances around us, and they 
shun us if they can. We repel and they de- 
part . We trust their forms, act according to 
their habits, and we get what we trust in — 
strength, vigor, life. That is spirit law, spirit 
habit, spirit nature, and our own spiritone 
forces the issue. When we begin to trust 
We establish a want ; our want leads to de- 
mand by persuasive thought, and we receive. 
We trust in our own government, and we 
grow strong ; we have no doubt of our power, 
and it increases; we recognize the food, and it 
nutrifies ; the creator, and it is admitted to 
create. From the planets and suns of the 
heavens, from animal and plant and stone — 
b}' communion with all of these — we are to 
reap pleasure. -Spirit and matter are inter- 
minsrled throughout the known Omuiverse: 



38 

there is in all regions, in some degree, a man- 
ifestation of both. 

We are made intelligent through formal 
action in the Omniverse ; affectionate through 
its static action ; willful, in accord with dy- 
namic habit. We know that every mental 
faculty and its responding body organ is 
directly influenced by a special kind of spirit 
force, which rightly directed , is a specific for 
diseases (lost government) of those regions. 

[This very extensive subject will be treated 
in another work.] 

But the greatest source of strength and 
vitality is in the truthful, mutual, honorable 
inter-relations of mankind. 

Those who are strong in wisdom, love or 
will, should aid those who are weak in these. 
All mankind have these in operation. The 
organs of the intellect direct us in our labor 
toward the fulfilment of our desires ; but they 
never perforin the functions of the other re- 
gions of mental actions or of mental wants. 
The affections love and attract. The will 
demands and executes. Intellect, affection, 
and volition are necessary to make possible a 
complex product. 

The measure by which we recognize the 
right use of any function is that of unity of 
purpose toward harmonism. 

nerve forces. Whatever destroys har- 
mony and equilibrium in a living body, in 



59 

a like degree destroys life ; whatever estab- 
lishes these supports life. The forces of 
affection are of those organs having smooth, 
looped, calmly flowing spirit forces, forces 
that draw others toward us and draw us 
toward others and that which we love. The 
very calmness of these forces are manifesta- 
tions of creative habit, of unity of forms and 
substances in perpetuation of the static con- 
dition of life. The perpetuation of affection, 
of harmony, of creative power, and of spirit 
growth is most fully wrought through the 
mastery that leads to the ceaseless gathering 
and ceaseless radiance of smoothly vibrating 
force-. 

Thus formal intellect, static affection, and 
dynamic will aid each other, and neither 
exists alone ; each is a habit of demand and 
of desire for life. 

If the pine tree lives five hundred years, 
why cannot man ? Is man less by nature 
than the pine ? Has the pine Inspiration — 
Hope — Faith ? It reaches out its roots and 
branches as its command for life substances ; 
they respond, and it repairs its bruises. With 
thought, desires, will and intelligent interest, 
why cannot man command the seasons for his 
own — daunt the humbug Time ? Why not ? 

needs. If we have needs, the}- are essen- 
tially needs of the spiritone, so let us supply 
it as we should rightly supply our physical 



46 

body, and thus in our outward look realize 
that it is concord with the whole Omniverse — 
and not alone its chemical elements — that we 
need. Material foods replenish and sustain 
their kind. We have nearly failed to con- 
sciously enjoy those of greater power. 

sources. The spirit substances and their 
forces, if rightly demanded and desired, can 
and do cure diseased conditions. These 
forces radiate from living thing to living 
thing in bands of life-giving energy. It is 
essential that we demand these forces ; but to 
desire and to demand are both, in the true 
sense, to make conditions right — to fit the 
self, the spirit nature — to receive. 

This self is the eternal ego of each of us. 
If we seek perpetual life, think its nature, 
will its organization, and develope by good 
and great deeds, we shall build a spiritone 
that is almost perpetual in its power of self- 
reparation, a perpetuation that may again 
and again lose its material accompaniment 
without injury to the spiritone. 

spiritician. The spiritician, by counsel, 
by sympathetic strength and established con- 
fidence unites, with the inherent forces, those 
around the patient, until the equipoise of spirit 
habit is resumed. Then, as the sun heat 
warms the physical body, external spirit force 
warms the spiritone. 

The spiritician accomplishes this without 



41 

great waste of energy, for he or she should 
also receive strength because of the demand. 
It is living nature's own method to demand 
those resources that harmonize each lesser 
part of herself. The spiritician should teach 
and prove that these things and conditions 
are true and possible ; teach these and add 
thereto such personal conduct as shall make 
the impulse felt by those who desire to grow 
spiritful. 

When the human self seeks force from the 
world around, that supply responds in pro- 
portion to the thoughtful harmony of the com- 
mand and need. 

But the appeal must not be made in the 
exhausting state of intense supplication, tears 
or agony, for these conditions are in them- 
selves products and creations of waste and 
exhaustion — they are the voice of fear and 
despair — and, like the strong narcotic to the 
powerless physical organs, they but add 
weight to the load of oppression. 

quietude. Then we must seek in the 
mental state of expectancy the harmony we 
desire, and with a determined and conscious 
quietude put our nature in condition to gain 
the essential elements from which spring 
growth. 

All forces move easiest the paths that others 
like them have moved before. We must 
make effort to get in a mental attitude of de- 



42 

sire, demand, assimilation. The more de- 
finite onr knowledge of our wants, the stronger 
our power to get them. 

Words are symbols of things and of con- 
ditions of things, and they associate the 
knowledge of these in the brain ; it is in this 
fact that the happy and joyous prayer (not of 
supplication, but of need) opens the mental 
nature to the reception of pow r er desired, the 
sympathetic action desired, and finally effect- 
ing the union of the want with its supply. It 
is the receptive condition of the needer that is 
essential ; the supply is perpetual, inexhaust- 
able, and if properly wanted is ever around 
the applicant. 

To establish this receptive condition is the 
particular labor of the spiritician, whether the 
applicant desires physical or mental harmony. 

Under these conditions a constant and or- 
derly demand will later become reinforced with 
vivid hope, awakened faith, active inspiration, 
unity with the greater motions of spirit, and 
finally, the natural and normal habit of all the 
organs. To gain this state of life is not often 
an easy task. We do not easily relax from 
our instilled ideas of material power, our false 
conceptions of space, our antagonistic thought 
and commerce, and — our actionless faith. 
All these befog our brains: and yet each 
truth, when once discovered, should be the 
easiest of all things to accept. 



. 43 

truth. Truth is in all things and no one 
is its sole interpreter. Growth and progress 
are as eternal as the Omniverse ; they are its 
function, its endless rhythm, its unextinguish- 
able flame. The spiritone that continues in 
a belief less than this will find itself bound in 
abasement, anchored in doubt and clouded by 
error. We must, by growth, avoid compar- 
ative decay. 

An essential element of growth is a state of 
mental rectitude in which we are conscious 
that we are trying and willing to give to 
others the greatest amount of happiness in 
our power to give without extreme waste to 
ourselves. A state in which we are able to 
oppose wrong without revenge or hate, but by 
installing justice and peace. Imperfection 
easily finds excuses for its existence ; perfec- 
tion seeks to make conditions such that im- 
perfection shall cease. 

We so seldom know those retarding condi- 
tions that hinder our own growth ; how shall 
we know all that obstructs the growth of 
others ? If then, we continue to hate, we 
create hate in others. Harshness begets 
harshness, injustice begets injustice, wrong 
increases wrong and hateful secrecy. All 
effect physical and spiritual degeneracy. 

The growth of our complete nature is con- 
fined only by the range of our thought, feel- 
ing and form of doing. If these are true, 



44 

they effect growth ; if false and angular, they 
lead to degeneracy. We need to create in 
onr daily actions those benefits to others 
which act as repayment for benefits we re- 
ceive, for action is the true measure of growth. 
They who seek knowledge, but shun action, 
fail to create the complete insturment in 
which harmony — concord — synchrony — sym- 
pathetic nodes of momentum — can exist. 

. There can be no action without an actor. 
Enduring growth arises from the accumula- 
tion of elements in which creative power re- 
sides; an accumulation of a surplus as yet 
unused, an accretion of similar and simpler 
compounds all of which the intensity of spirit 
modes swirl in and accentuate in the body for 
its utility. 

Let us dwell a moment longer on this part 
of our subject. Let us realize that the bring- 
ing into existence of a thing from no thing or 
the putting together of nothings is impossible, 
even to God. And where has He said it was 
possible ? The spiritone of man can find per- 
fection only in obedience to spirit laws. 
These laws are in essence, the moulding of 
the complex nature of each of us into more 
complex and more sympathetic bodies ; this 
demands the reception of elements in which 
law resides ; law resides in substances ; sub- 
stances join each other by their established 
relations to each other. The relations that 



45 

effect life are comparative unity of movement 
in length, direction and velocity ; these habits 
admit of great juxtaposition — which brings 
complexity, continuity, convolution — and in 
the end express mentality. 

The unity of growth depends upon its con- 
stancy, upon the ceaselessness of the bringing 
together. The inward must be greater than 
the outward going. 

Spasmodic desire to do good is not a creator 
of power ; desire must be accompanied by ac- 
tion, and that action be governed by thought. 

Ceaseless doing better is the true require- 
ment of growth and nobility, and the actions 
of each of us concern every living thing. 

To do good requires that neither shall be 
injured by the action — the doer must not be a 
loser. 

recompense. In every essentially good 
deed there must be recompense to the doer, 
if this is not given, and in some measure 
recognized, there is loss and waste ; the thing 
done injures .some one. 

There is only such a faint conception of good 
action that many who struggle to do good fail 
because they lose more than the}* — or an} 7 one 
else — gain. They struggle to the end that 
their own nature becomes out of harmony, and 
their own loss of self-government is greater 
-than the benefit to those they desire to aid. 

When we master ourselves we gain the 



4 6 

surplus strength necessary to do good to 
others. Thus the realization of selfhood and 
its dues, of life in which every thought and 
motion is either loss or gain, will more fully 
establish our self-government and more clear- 
ly define our wants. 

In those experiences we term pain, we are 
conscious of the loss of government in the 
part affected; in our experiences of sorrow we 
do not trace the loss of government to a part, 
we do not realize the location of our injury; 
in our experiences of fear the same is true. 
And yet in each of these there is an actual 
loss of self-ruling, just as definite in its act as 
is that of pain. 

When we become fully self-ruling we .shall 
experience no pain, no sorrow, and no fear. 
Not that we shall not realize the existence of 
change, but we shall realize also that perpet- 
ual life belongs to harmonious things — real- 
ize a vast concord of part to part, a ceaseless 
relation of want to. supply, of good action to 
good action — that will not allow disseverence 
of ourselves by habits of waste or the over- 
powering of rythmic spirit by movements out 
of time within us. 

In this way we shall reach the necessary 
power to exclude injuries from without and 
prevent injuries within. We will not avoid 
law, nor suppress it, we will obey law — or- 
ganic law. 



47 

The law will not be less, but we will be 
greater. We will gain power by the creation 
of new laws by combining the segments 
of present eternal law ; by the establishment 
of combined habits that are now single hab- 
its ; and effect aggrandizement of growth by 
adding to a conscious spiritone less conscious 
spirit. Let us banish doubt. Life is ever 
from the less to the greater, and can never 
cease. That w r e may exist forever is as evi- 
dent as that we exist now. The memory of 
the distant past may have been absorbed and 
only apparently lost. Time is only change — 
each greater day encompasses the last. 

futurity. Futurity is spiritual, just as we 
are accumulating densities of needing spirit — 
and we will ever continue to be. 

Our life is omniversal because the Omni- 
verse creates its habits and sustains its desires. 
Life is eternal because its substances and 
their laws are eternal. Life grows stronger, 
nobler, more pleasurable, because everywhere 
is there increasing harmonic movements of 
spirit particles, intensifying each other's 
action by rhythm, sympathy, synchrony — all 
blending eternally toward the perfection of 
the whole. 



4 8 

LIFE AND HEALTH. 

TO THOSE WHO ARE ILL IN BODY OK SPIRIT. 

There are no mental or physical ailments that can 
not be cured when thoroughly treated by life-giving 
forces within and around us. It is the function and 
natural pleasure of the spiritician to teach and effect 
self-control and growth in those who cannot, when ill, 
control and heal themselves. 

To those who so desire, I will give counsel and 
treatment toward regaining mental and physical har- 
mony. The laws and forces used are those embodied 
in spirit substances as described in "LIFE AND 
HEALING." 

The purpose of either present or absent treatment 
will be to organize the demand, and make conditions 
for, the reception of spirit substances and their forces 
These will create strength, health and happiness. 

Terms for counsel and healing on application by 
mail or in person. 

Yours, for betterment, 

HOLMES W. MERTON, 
Spiritonomist. 

Statement Concerning "Life and Healing." 
The reader may notice repeated sentences and 
words; in so condensed a book this has seemed neces- 
sary. The attempt is made to thus more closely con- 
nect parts of the subject with the least reference to 
other pages of the book. 

Some new words are used ; they were necessary. 
Among these are Omniverse, spiritonomy, spiritono- 
mist, spirogen, spiroplasm, spiritone and spiritician, 
in contra-distinction to the material world and the 
terms of materialism— materialism, materialist, oxy- 
gen, protoplasm, bioplasm, physical body and physi- 



49 

IN LIGHTER VEIN. 

DESCRIPTIVE MENTALITY. 

Illustrated, 120 pages, paper, 50 cents. By Holmes 
W. Merton. 

A concise and practical method of learning to read 
the character, habit and capacities of the mental facul 
ties from their definite signs in the head, face and 
hand. 

Unlike any other drawings of the face and hand, 
these have the names of the signs printed on their 
locations. 

The author's aim has been to widen the view of 
mental life, teach a valuable art, and make the book 
interesting and valuable to the general reader by 
avoiding technical and tedious descriptions. 

Printed on heavy paper, clear type, illustrated by 
eighteen pages of half-tones and photo-engravings, 
drawn expressly for this book. 

LIFE AND HEALING; cloth, 50 cts. ; leather, 
flexible covers, 75 cts. 

DESCRIPTIVE MENTALITY; paper, 50 cts. 
HOLMES W. MERTON, 

212 Columbus Ave., Boston, Mass. 






DHH^^^^nania^m 



